Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/381

 846 KATE'S WINTER IN WASHINGTON.

She gave herself no time to think where Harry Everett was concerned. At first she told herself fiercely that she was glad - glad! But it is not so easy to tear out and erase the affection of a whole life. Those passionate loves, kindled by a glance, a first meeting, show for much more, in the way of strength and intensity, than a love such as Kate's had been, but they are not so hard to kill-absence and anger together will usually do it.

I said she took no time to think; she was furious with herself when she found that she dared not; but calling herself hard names, and administering mental self-flagellation, did not alter the fact. So she rushed about from the time she got out of bed till she got into it, so tired physically by the incessant round that she would have slept if she had been going to execution the next morning.

But, no matter how great the excitement, how pleasant the ball or concert, how complete her triumph, that dull ache haunted her heart, followed her into her dreams, and, worst of all, in sleep, her will was powerless, and she would see and hear him as he had been when he was most loving and tender, and most noble in her eyes; and she would be conscious that she loved him, and have to wake and rage against herself for being mean-spirited enough to have such visions.

Phil Marsden haunted her like her shadow. His constant attentions were beginning to be freely commented on; but Kate did not dream of that.

"It is so much better for a young girl, left so much alone as you are, to have a married man

like Philip ready to attend you." Circe said, "If you let any unmarried fellow hang about you too much, they will say you are engaged - and you don't want that."

"Indeed, I don't," cried Kate, with a shudder.

"And you know Philip and I are always glad, either of us, to be of the least service to you. Phil says you seem just like a younger sister. I don't know how I should live without you, so patient with all my whims and follies."

Kate no longer contradicted her when she uttered such self-reproaches. She loved Lily as well as ever, but she had learned to consider her both capricious and imprudent.

If everybody could have shown her that she was allowing a married man to make her the confidant of his heart and home disappointments, she would have been shocked and horrified at herself. But Marsden had managed so artfully, gone his way so cautiously, and it had all come about so gradually, that she did not in the least realize the position that their friendship had assumed.

She had learned to let him appeal openly to her for sympathy in his lonely life, as well as for interest in his hopes and aims. He told her that her talent was so immense, her intuitions so unerring, that he would rather take her advice than that of the shrewdest diplomatist living; and she believed that she understood him thoroughly, and thought all his plans so noble.

Circe omitted no opportunity of throwing them together. She would make appointments to take Kate out and send Phil instead, ask her to her house, and be gone, and leave word that she was to let Phil entertain her during that unavoidable absence.

And Phil Marsden could hardly have failed to make himself agreeable to any woman. His skill in reading character was something almost supernatural; and Kate was too impulsive not to be transparent, so that he understood her much more thoroughly than she did herself.

He was too astute not to do her full justice; too clever a villain to disbelieve in truth, honor, and purity, just because he did not possess them. And he knew that no woodland lake, in the sunshine, was ever more unstained than the girl's soul. Theoretically, she had a great many ideas that she would have been better without that is true of all girls with any brains at all. The course of education, the books they are allowed to read, the state society is in, all combine to make that true. I am inclined to believe that Innocence disappeared from earth a great while ago. Theoretically, everybody knows everything; but purity, after all, is a great deal better, since, nine times out of ten, Innocence used to go over the bay when temptation came, just because she did not recognize it until too late.

With all their efforts, and notwithstanding their intimacy with Kate, the Marsdens found themselves proceeding very slowly in their attempts to reach Mr. Wallingford.

He was not fond of society, and never went out when he could help it; and when Circe did meet him, she was so much puzzled by his quiet reserve that she was afraid of making a wrong move, and Phil succeeded even more poorly.

When Mr. Wallingford thought about these people, he had a vague feeling of distrust in his mind; but he was so much occupied that he seldom did remember their existence any more than that of the other butterflies whom he saw flitting about his niece.

And just now the Marsdens were passing